Quid Rides? The Satires of Horace, Juvenal, Donne and Swift

Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Rohrbacher, David

Keywords

Satire, Literature, Classics

Area of Concentration

Literature

Abstract

This thesis consists of analytical readings of literary satire including Horace's first book of verse satire; Juvenal's Satires I, III, and X; the formal verse satire of John Donne; and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, with focus on Part IV. In the introduction, I discuss the areas of critical approaches to satire which interest me, namely to what extent satire can be viewed as earnest moral instruction and various issues that arise when a satire is given in the first person ('persona theory'.) The purpose of this thesis is to explore great works of satire mostly with regard to these two areas. I do not set out to provide a comprehensive system of what 'satire' is, yet my exploration does lead to a few general assertions � namely that a study of the 'I' satirist as a dramatic creation separate from the author reveals complicated attitudes at work within the satire. These findings lead to the conclusion that, rather than being the author's spokesperson for a simple moral lesson, the satirist is better viewed as an exploration of or an approach to morality.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS